• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 7 hours ago

A new NBC sitcom starring Tracy Morgan got an appropriate preview last weekend following “Sunday Night Football” on NBC.

The show has an NFL-related storyline. Titled “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,” Morgan, 57, plays the title role -- an ex-NFL superstar who fell from favor and got banished from the league after a gambling scandal more than 20 years ago.

In the show, he sets a plan in motion to rehabilitate his image, starting with purchasing the services of an English documentary filmmaker to make a documentary about his life.

But from the outset, the two clash over the direction of the project. The filmmaker -- award-winning director Arthur Tobin (played by Daniel Radcliffe, photo above with Morgan) -- understandably expects to produce a warts-and-all chronicle of Dinkins’ checkered history.

But Dinkins resists that approach, preferring that the director make a puff piece that portrays him as the greatest guy in the world.

Mediating the conflict is Dinkins’ ex-wife, Monica (played by Erika Alexander), who is also his agent and business manager. 

Her advice? Do not make his film -- because, among other reasons, Dinkins is practically broke and can ill afford to pay for it.

NBC prefers that journalists refrain from writing full-on reviews of “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” because last weekend’s preview did not represent the show’s “official” premiere.

That happens next month when the sitcom returns on Monday, February 23, for a re-airing of the pilot at 8 p.m. Eastern followed by Episode Two at 8:30.

The following Monday, March 2, the show will be seen at 8:30 p.m., which will then become its regular time period.

If last Sunday’s airing of the pilot after the football game was “unofficial,” then so is this TV Blog. 

It is not an official review, but I will venture an opinion here anyway that I hope NBC will forgive me for: The show is great, starting with its title, which the TV Blog suspects is an amalgam of two New York notables from the life of Brooklyn native Morgan, who was born in 1968 -- Yankee great Reggie Jackson and the late ex-mayor of the early 1990s, David Dinkins.

Morgan is a welcome presence on TV going as far back as “Saturday Night Live,” then “30 Rock,” and more recently, the superb comedy “The Last O.G.” on TBS, created by Jordan Peele.

 “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” reunites Morgan with Robert Carlock, co-creator of “Reggie Dinkins” (along with Sam Means) and showrunner -- with Tina Fey -- of “30 Rock.”

Since it is literally about the making of a documentary, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” is a one-camera, mockumentary-style comedy series.

Morgan and Radcliffe play well together, and the show gets great support from Erika Alexander and former “SNL” regular Bobby Moynihan, who plays a former teammate of Reggie’s and his best friend.

Alexander, 56, has been seen on TV in dramas and sitcoms for her entire adult life. She gained fame as one of the stars of the ensemble comedy “Living Single” in the 1990s. Morgan and Carlock are lucky to have her.

Last Sunday’s NFL playoff game -- in which the L.A. Rams beat the Chicago Bears in Chicago -- drew 45.4 million viewers, according to NBC. Viewership spiked to 52.6 million when the game went into overtime.